A night with the Olympians

Last night we went to the International Men’s Curling Championships at the (awesome) Tsongas Arena in Lowell, MA. The event involves teams from all over the world, including the American team which won the bronze in Torino. The kids were huge fans of curling during the Olympics, so we despite the fact that we none of us have ever tried and we were a little sketchy on the rules, we went to see our Olympic heroes.

There are 4 matches taking place at once, so despite a pace which makes baseball look frenetic, there was plenty of interesting stuff to watch. Of particular interest were the groups of international fans that had followed their teams, including a very entertaining crew from Sweden.

The US ended up beating Scotland with a points in the last two “ends”, and two of the other three matches went down to the wire as well.

We had additional fun afterwards. My kids painted US flags on their faces, and my son had included the words “Pete Fenson” - name of the skipper of the US team. Pete’s wife noticed us during the game and came by to take a picture. Afterwards we ran into her again and she was nice enough to introduce us to the guys on the team. They were awesomely nice to the kids. A couple of them gave my son some team pins, so he got some great things to remember the night by.

It’s still in Lowell through the weekend, so if you’re in Massachusetts I’d highly recommend it!